Daily Archives: January 27, 2012

So at what point do our country’s television networks notice that Team Obama has an ideological agenda against faith-based charitable organizations, most especially the Catholic Church? Across the country, Democrats have been pushing Catholic social workers out of government cooperation. In Massachusetts, the District of Columbia and most recently in Illinois, Democrats have insisted on forcing Catholic Charities to quit its long-time assistance in providing adoption and foster-care services because they refused to place children with homosexual couples.

How militant is their bigotry? Consider: The Catholic providers offered to refer them to other agencies (as they had been doing for unmarried couples), but Gov. Pat Quinn’s government drew a line in the sand, comparing gays to the black civil rights struggle. “Separate but equal was not a sufficient solution on other civil rights issues in the past either,” government spokesman Kendall Marlowe told The New York Times. “The child welfare system that Catholic Charities helped build is now strong enough to survive their departure.”

The Conference of Catholic Bishops lost a federal contract to aid survivors of sex trafficking because Obama’s HHS bureaucrats objected that contraceptive and abortion referrals would not be provided. Steven Wagner reported for National Review that senior officials at HHS, up to and including persons in the office of Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “overrode career staff to give federal funds to two organizations deemed by the professionals to be unqualified.”

In the 2008 election, Obama won 54% of the Catholic vote, McCain won 45%. According to Cathnews.com and Wikipedia, Catholics compose about 25% of the electorate. That’s a pretty significant voting bloc, especially when you compare that to the 20% of Americans who claim to be liberals and not all of those 20% will be voting.

The Obama administration is treading on dangerous water here. Catholics don’t vote as a straight bloc, but winning the Catholic vote is critical to winning elections.

from John Feehery/The Hill: “Catholics also don’t necessarily all agree on every issue. There are plenty of pro-choice Catholic voters, just as there are orthodox Catholics who agree with the pope on everything.

But what Catholic voters don’t like is the idea of the federal government attacking the church for being what it is.”

That last line is the money quote: Catholics don’t like being attacked for simply being Catholic.

Here’s why Obama has probably already lost the Catholic Vote — or why it is at least up for grabs. Exit polling from the last national elections in 2010 show, depending on which polls you consult, anywhere from a24-point to an 18-point Catholic swing from supporting Democrats to supporting Republicans. The Associated Press claimed Catholics supported the GOP by 58%, CNN said it was 55%, and a CNN exit poll pegged Catholic support of the GOP in 2010 at 53%.

Bush beat Kerry in 2004 with only 52% of the Catholic Vote. Which means that whatever poll you consult, Obama was already at least 6 points behind Bush’s 2004 winning-level of support in 2010, and Obama’s poll numbers have only decreased since then.

Here’s the caveat: lots of Democrats didn’t go out and vote in 2010, and off-year elections are always tougher on the incumbent party in power (in 2010 that was the Democrats). Additionally, Democrats largely neglected Catholic outreach in the 2010 elections. So 2012 will be more of an uphill climb because we can count on Democrats to have learned their lesson about not courting Catholics. But the prognosis remains favorable if the current trends hold.

And when or if you have time, it is worth it to read this from the National Catholic Reporter by a man who supported Obama’s visit and address at Notre Dame in 2009. It may turn into another blog for another day.